Phonology Study Notes

LING 1010: Phonology Notes

From Sound to Meaning

  • Linguistic Competence: The ability to perceive continuous soundwaves and decode the intended message or idea conveyed by others.

    • Note: Not all languages utilize sound as the primary production mode, as discussed in sign languages later in the semester.

Analysis of the Signal

  • Linguists believe that analyzing the signal involves multiple levels:

    • Break up the speech signal into discrete speech sounds.

    • Group speech sounds into meaningful units, such as words.

    • Group words into phrases and sentences for interpretation.

  • Focus of Study: The sound structure of language, specifically speech sounds and their combinations.

Speech Sounds

  • Every language has a basic set of speech sounds used to build expressions.

  • Technical Terms:

    • Phone: A sound used in any language (studied in phonetics).

    • Phonology: Studies language sounds as a part of the sound inventory of particular languages.

    • Phoneme: The smallest unit that can change to differentiate distinct words in a language; part of the 'sound grammar'.

Use of Phonemes

  • A phoneme can consist of several different phones forming one sound in a language.

    • Example: The word "map" compared to "mat" illustrates the contrast between phonemes in English.

  • Phonemes are denoted with dashes (e.g., /p/), while physical realizations (phones) are enclosed in angular brackets (e.g., [p]).

  • Minimal Pair: Two words that differ by only one phoneme.

    • Example: map vs mat, both differ in one phoneme.

Examples of Minimal Pairs

  • Additional examples include:

    • pop vs. cop

    • cat vs. kit

    • fail vs. kale

    • high vs. buy

    • mate vs. meet

  • Note: Conventional spelling may be misleading.

Phones and Phonemes in Detail

  • Different sounds (two phones) can act as one phoneme:

    • Example: "pin" vs. "spin"

    • Intuition: Same p-sound used in both.

    • Phonetics: Different aspirated realizations (

    • "[ph]in" vs. "s[p]in", where aspiration indicates a puff of air after closure).

  • Phonemes can have different realizations, which can vary freely.

    • Example: The word "map" can be articulated with or without releasing the closure (represented as ma[p] or ma[p̚]).

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

  • Purpose: The IPA assigns symbols to all sounds (phones) used systematically in languages worldwide.

  • Each IPA symbol corresponds to one and only one phone to minimize confusion.

  • Some phone notations involve diacritics; e.g., aspirated [ph] and unreleased [p̚].

  • IPA symbols for Standard American English phonemes can be found in the IPA charts.

    • Over 300 symbols represent phones across languages.

  • Note: Memorization of IPA symbols is not required for this course.

Comparison with Roman Alphabet

  • Challenge: Why not use the Roman alphabet?

    • IPA has a one-to-one relationship between symbols and sounds, unlike the Roman alphabet.

    • Letters can represent multiple sounds, and multiple letters can represent a single sound.

  • Joke: The word "GHOTI" could have been spelled as such based on alternate pronunciations of the sequences in “tough”, “women”, and “nation.”

Examples from the IPA Chart for English

  • Words can be transcribed phonetically:

    • cat: [kæt]

    • map: [mæp]

    • book: [bʊk]

    • English: [ɪŋglɪʃ]

    • my: [mɑɪ]

    • thick: [θɪk]

    • fix: [fɪks]

  • Notable points about phones in IPA:

    • Single phones represented by two letters (e.g., sh: [ʃ], th: [θ]).

    • Multiple phonemes represented by a single letter in English have two IPA symbols (e.g., x: [ks], y: [aɪ]).

Minimal Pairs with IPA

  • Representations include:

    • pop vs. cop: [phɑp] vs. [khɑp]

    • cat vs. kit: [khæt] vs. [khɪt]

    • fail vs. kale: [feɪl] vs. [keɪl]

    • high vs. buy: [hɑɪ] vs. [bɑɪ]

    • mate vs. meet: [meɪt] vs. [mit]

Articulation of Speech Sounds

  • Classification: Based on articulatory properties — how vocal tract components shape sounds during speech.

  • Active Articulators: Include the tongue, lips, and velum (soft palate).

    • These parts move to create closures or constrictions in the vocal tract.

  • Source of Speech Sounds: Air expelled from lungs, passing through vocal cords in the larynx.

Consonants vs. Vowels

  • Consonants: High constriction or full closure in the vocal tract.

  • Vowels: Allow airstream to flow relatively freely; produced as tones.

    • Acoustic Properties:

    • Vowels: Non-turbulent, typically louder (easier to sing).

    • Consonants: More turbulent, often lower amplitude, creating pops, clicks, and hisses.

Classification of Speech Sounds

  • Speech sounds arranged according to articulatory features:

    • Place of Articulation: Location of constriction in the vocal tract.

    • Manner of Articulation: Method of constriction affecting airflow.

    • Voicing: Presence or absence of vocal cord vibration (voiced vs. voiceless).

Articulatory Features for Consonants

  • Table of Features:

    • Places of articulation include: bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal.

    • Manner of articulation features include: stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, glides, and liquids.

Phonotactics of Languages

  • Languages possess rules governing how phonemes combine into words, known as phonotactics.

  • Certain phonetic sequences are disallowed due to these rules:

    • Examples: "bnick", "tflap", "hlad", and "stleng" are ungrammatical in English.

  • Rule example: [stl] sequence not permitted at the beginning of a word.

Phonotactic Examples in English

  • Plural -s: Generally pronounced as [z] but appears as [s] in other contexts.

    • Comparison:

    • toe [toʊ] → toes [toʊz]

    • mare [meɪɹ] → mares [meɪɹz]

    • dog [dɔg] → dogs [dɔgz]

Exceptions and Repairs in Plurals

  • Some nouns require adjustment for their plurals due to final sounds either clashing or not conforming.

  • Examples:

    • book [bʊk] → books [bʊks]

    • cat [kæt] → cats [kæts]

Phonological Rules

  • Generalizations about phoneme sequences are expressed through phonological rules:

    • Example Rule: /z/ → [s] / voiceless consonant ___

    • Interpretation: Realize /z/ as [s] when occurring after a voiceless consonant.

Step-wise Application of Phonological Rules

  • Step 1: Form the underlying representation: For cats, the plural is /kætz/.

  • Step 2: Verify condition of rule application (does the preceding sound classify as voiceless?). For 'cat', [t] is voiceless.

  • Step 3: Apply specified change in the rule to reach surface representation: /z/ changes to [s] yielding [kæts].

Additional Phonological Rules

  • Example concerning aspirated and non-aspirated /p/:

    • As per rule: /p/ → [ph] / WORD-BOUNDARY___ VOWEL

    • Underlying representation: /pɪn/ → transformed to surface representation: [phɪn].

    • Conversely, /spɪn/ remains [spɪn] unaltered.

  • Issue of retaining native phonological rules when speaking another language can lead to accents and challenges in distinguishing phonemes (e.g., the difference between Korean [p]ul 'fire' and [ph]ul 'grass').

Summary of Key Concepts

  • Word pronunciation consists of sequences of phones that represent abstract sound units (phonemes).

  • Discovery of phonemes arises through minimal pairs analysis.

  • IPA usage allows phoneticians to express phones enclosed in angular brackets.

  • Phonological rules transform underlying representations into surface pronunciations of words.

  • Phonotactics designates constraints on phoneme combinations in language.